InProletarskaya Pravda No. 6, we commented on the
speech Comrade Kautsky
delivered[1]
during the discussion of Russian affairs in the International Socialist
Bureau, and on the amazing—to the Russian reader—complete and
deplorable ignorance of Russian affairs that he then displayed.

In his speech Kautsky said that in Russia “the old Party is dead”. In
a second speech, replying to the objections that had been raised to this,
Kautsky said: “I did not say that Russian Social-Democracy is dead; I
merely assert that the old forms are broken and that new forms must be
created.” This is how Vorw\"arts, the central organ of the German
party, whose delegate Kautsky was, reports the matter. Vorw\"arts
is published in the city where Kautsky lives, and, of course, if he had
found that he had been incorrectly reported he would have hastened to
correct the report, as he has done on more than one occasion on questions
far less important than the “question of the existence” of an entire
Party, and of one affiliated to the International at that.

And now, No. 101 of Novaya Likvidatorskaya Gazeta publishes
its own report of the meeting of the International Bureau, in
which Kautsky’s second speech is so reported as to make it appear that
Kautsky definitely denied that he had stated that the “Party is
dead”.

We would have been the first to rejoice had Kautsky really spoken a
second time in order emphatically to with draw the view which he had
expressed, and which was based on his most deplorable ignorance of Russian
Party life. But alas! We have no grounds whatever for giving more credence
to the report in Novaya Likvidatorskaya Gazeta than to the report
in the central organ of the German party.

The liquidators’ newspaper is trying to hush up the matter. But it is
quite clear. In his statement about the old Party being “dead” Kautsky
not only betrayed ignorance of the facts about the Russian working-class
movement, but also revealed what sort of influence the liquidator
whisperers abroad exercise upon our foreign comrades.

After uttering his monstrous phrase and meeting with objections,
Kautsky tried to correct himself. As reported in Vorwärts,
the central organ of the German Social-Democratic Party, he appears to have
corrected himself badly, and as reported by the liquidator correspondent he
appears to have corrected himself better, but not very much better, for
what does he mean by the “form” of Social-Democracy, if not the Party?

The point, however, is not how Kautsky corrected him self, but
the unpardonable mistake he committed as a result of liquidator
efforts abroad. Class-conscious workers in Russia could, of course, easily
expose these whisperers abroad if only they wanted to, and it is high time
they did want to! They must organise the work of informing our foreign
comrades about their movement in such a way as to tear this business out of
the hands of irresponsible émigré coteries. They must
counteract the efforts being made by whisperers to use the
ignorance (natural) of foreign parties for their own liquidator ends. That
is why we called upon the worker comrades to respond as vigorously as
possible to the International Bureau’s appeal to clarify the disagreements
between the Marxists and the liquidators. Let the foreign comrades at last
hear the voices of the workers themselves and not those of the liquidator
whisperers. This is important, this is essential if we value the idea of
international unity.

We make this appeal for a genuine clarification of disagreements, for
keeping our foreign comrades informed by means of resolutions, decisions
and voting by the workers them selves in order to counteract the
liquidators’ attempts to conceal or garble the facts of what took place at
the meeting of the Bureau.